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Margaret Morgan answers on the second ring. “Ashlyn? Is everything alright? It’s after midnight.” Her voice, normally controlled as a surgeon’s hand, holds an edge of worry that makes my chest constrict with unfamiliar emotion.

“I’m fine, Mom,” I say. The title remains awkward after all these years. She tried her best, but I was never an easy child to love—too watchful, too strange. Too prone to waking screaming about faces in the trees.

“You don’t call this late unless something’s wrong.” Her voice sharpens with concern. “Where are you?”

“I can’t say. They’re sending me on assignment. I... might be out of contact for a while.” My voice fractures on the last word. I press knuckles against my lips to stifle sound.

A long pause stretches between us. Static crackles on the line when she speaks—my phone screen flickers. “The dreams are back, aren’t they?” she finally says. Voice barely more than breath. “The ones about the forest.”

“You know?” I whisper, gripping the phone so hard plastic creaks in protest. “About my dreams?”

“You used to wake up screaming” Her voice drops to murmur, so faint I press the phone painfully against my ear. “But I’ve always known you were... different, Ash. Special. From the moment they brought you to us, wrapped in that strange silvery blanket.”

My heart batters itself against my ribcage, each beat so violent I expect bones to crack. The room dissolves around me. “Mom, I need to know everything.”

A hesitation stretches too long. “There are things I swore I’d never tell you. Promises I made to keep you safe.”

“Safe from what?” The words tear out of me.

“From them. From him. From what you really are.” Her voice breaks. A suppressed sob that sends shock through me. I’ve never heard her cry. The sound makes my bones ache.

“Mom—” The word emerges as a raw supplication.

“Listen to me carefully, Ashlyn.” Her voice transforms. Stripped of reserve. “Whatever they’ve told you about this assignment, it’s not the whole truth. Twenty-five years I’vewatched him groom you for this moment. You need to contact your cousins.”

“My cousins?” The word catches in my throat.

The girls. She means the girls—Sabina, Vanessa, Pepper, Kelsie. My wolf pack. Daughters of women she calls sisters. My chosen family. The people I’ve deliberately avoided these past two years. Burying myself in missions to escape their perceptive gazes.

Who always knew when I was evading the truth. Who never seemed surprised by impossible things. Who I avoided because they made me feel less human.

“Yes,” she whispers. Voice dropping further. “It’s time they knew the truth, Ash. About you. About all of you.”

“What truth?” Ocean roars in my ears. Blood drains from my face so rapidly dizziness overcomes me. “What are you talking about?”

“You’re all connected through blood older than human reckoning. They’ll understand what’s happening to you—they’ve always been more in touch with their heritage.”

“Mom, you’re not making sense—” I begin. Panic rises like floodwaters, threatening to drown coherent thought.

“I have a bad feeling about this, Ash.” Her voice breaks. In twenty-five years, I’ve never heard her cry. The sound pulls at something primal in my chest. Makes my own eyes burn with answering tears. “Promise me you’ll be careful. Promise me you’ll remember that not everything looks like what it seems. That sometimes... sometimes what looks like protection is really a cage.”

Before I can respond, sharp knocks rattle the door. My five minutes are up. I startle violently. Heart launching into throat. Choking off breath.

“I have to go,” I say. Eyes burning. Throat constricted to pinhole.

“Promise me, Ash.” Her voice fractures with emotion I’ve never heard from her. Raw desperation. “Promise you’ll call them. After all this time, they deserve to know everything.”

“I promise,” I say. Words settling heavy as stone in chest. How do I reach out after two years of silence? How do I explain what I’ve spent a lifetime denying? “I—Mom, I—” But words fail me.

The line dies.

I stand motionless, pressing palms against eyes until colors burst behind lids. Trying to still the violent trembling that’s claimed my body like a seizure.

What the hell just happened? In all our years together, Margaret Morgan has never spoken like that—never acknowledged the strangeness between us.

Never shown such naked fear.

Davis awaits with my gear when I emerge—tactical clothing replaced with academic attire in muted grays and blacks. Professional. Unremarkable. Forgettable.